


Favor of the Penguin - Part 1

by Riddlebird-puff (hobbitpuff)



Series: Favor of the Penguin [1]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Oswald, Fallen Gotham, Friends with Favors, Godfather Penguin, Kinda, M/M, blizzard, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 15:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17004441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitpuff/pseuds/Riddlebird-puff
Summary: Gotham has fallen, a blizzard is coming, and Jim makes a deal with Penguin to keep his people from freezing.





	Favor of the Penguin - Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fic takes place six months after S4.
> 
> This is really one fic that i decided to split up in two chapters, second part should be coming within 1-2 weeks. 
> 
> Warning: this fic does not feature non-con however Jim does believe he is agreeing to trade sexual favors in exchange for saving his people. (This is not part of the deal)
> 
> ** Changed from multi chaptered fic to a series - Part 2 is still coming **

Jim halted outside the barricade and held his hands up. “I've come for an audience with the Penguin,” he called out. “Tell him Captain James Gordon is here to speak with him, he'll see me.” At least he thought Oswald would see him. He felt the rifle on him while the guard spoke on an archaic walkie talkie.  
  
“Says he's Captain Jim Gordon, boss… I don't know, his face is covered with beard, could be anyone under there… Penguin says, prove you are who you say you are.”  
  
The air was so cold he could see the air coming from the guard's mouth.  
  
Jim sighed. It would have been so much more simpler to give Oswald a call like he had done whenever he needed something in the past but cellphones were only worth their price of components these days, which wasn't much.  
  
“Tell your boss that an old friend has come to walk with him in the dark,” he called out. “He'll know what it means.”  
  
He heard the static from the handheld.  
  
“Boss says to let him in,” the guard with walkie talkie ordered the guards at the barricade. The guards started moving the boards out of the way to let him in.  
  
“If you're really the good Captain Gordon,” the guard nearest him poked him with the end of his rifle, “you don't got too many friends here.” The man laughed. “Don't expect to see you come out this way again.”  
  
Jim grabbed the rifle and pulled the guard closer. “First rule of combat is, never get too close to the enemy.” He ripped it out of the guard's hands and held the guard in a chokehold, back to front.  
  
“Hey… if it isn't Jimbo,” an all to familiar voice called out. “Did you decide to join the dark side after all? Let Jacobs go, Gordo. Penguin sends word that if one person's touches the Captain, he will feed the lot of you to the dogs.”  
  
Zsasz, he should've figured the assassin would find his way to Penguin. The man held no loyalty but to whomever held the most power. And at the moment, in Gotham, that would be Oswald Cobblepot.  
  
That's why he was here after all.  
  
Jim pushed the guard away from him and shoved the rifle into his arms. “No hard feelings, I hope.” He felt good, it had been too long since he had seen some action. It warmed his blood.  
  
“If you're done playing cat and mice with the guards, I will take you to Penguin,” Szasz stated.  
  
“Aren't you going to search me for weapons?” he asked. “I could be here to assassinate your boss.”  
  
“If you wanted to kill Penguin, Jim, you wouldn't need a weapon to do so,” the assassin seemed almost to give respect. “And Penguin instructed you were to be treated as an honored guest.”  
  
Jim followed Zsasz through the encampment, it had the atmosphere of a war camp. More guards stood at attention with rifles, men and women ready to defend Penguin's territory. The guards closer to the building that had been city hall before the fall of Gotham resembled a biker gang from a apocalyptic movie from the eighties, each guard wearing a spiked collar around their necks.  
  
“Penguin's got a new pet, I see,” the guard smiled, showing teeth filed to sharp points. “This new pup stinks almost as bad as the green hound,” he sniffed at Jim. “Probably tastes as bad as he smells.”  
  
James had thought Gotham could no longer surprise him, he had been wrong. There was something about the guard that unnerved him. And ‘green hound’- did that mean Nygma was here too, he had assumed the man who called himself the Riddler had been lost in the fall, it would have been no great loss.  
  
“Stand down, Duke,” Zsasz put his arm around Jim. “This one is under the Penguin's protection. If you so much as taste him, he will have your tongue.”  
  
“You tell your boss, the dogs are hungry, hairless one,” the guard growled in Zsasz’s face. “And hungry dogs are known to bite the hand that feeds them.”  
  
“Don't forget what happens to mad dogs, Duke,” the assassin pointed his fingers in the shape of a gun and pretended to shoot the guard in the head. “They get put down.”  
  
Instead of getting angry, like Jim expected, the guard barked out a laugh and hit Zsasz on the shoulder. “You sure you don't want to become a member of the pack, pup? You'd make a good dog.”  
  
“I'm not what you'd call a pack animal, Duke,” the assassin smiled.  
  
“A lone wolf,” the guard howled. “I get it.” He opened the door for them. Zsasz motioned Jim ahead.  
  
“Those Penguin's dogs you mentioned back at the barricade?”  
  
“You were always a quick one, Jimbo,” he answered sarcastically. “You won't want to wander into their kennel, these dogs have been known to eat intruders.”  
  
“I'll, uh, be sure to keep that in mind,” Jim felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the blizzard outside.  
  
“We'll be going through the casino to get to Oswald’s penthouse, try not to cause problems, Captain,” he grinned at Jim. “As much as I would love some action in this place, violence tends to make the paying customers nervous, which Oswald does not like.”  
  
Jim followed Zsasz into the casino. There were tables with games of roulette, backgammon, and poker going on. The men and women at the tables were dressed wealthy, if shabby, like expensive clothes that had not seen dry cleaning in some time. He even thought he recognized a few of Gotham's former elites.  
  
“I'm surprised anyone would gamble with money in this economy,” he dryly laughed.  
  
“They're not gambling for money, Jim,” the assassin explained. “They gamble in food rations and favors. And the highest chip in this place is a favor from the Penguin himself.”  
  
Cobblepot had fixed the place up nice, he thought. A little pre-war art deco. It would seem Fish's umbrella boy had come a long way in Gotham's destruction.  
  
Zsasz led him up a grand staircase and through a carpeted hall. He stopped in front of a paneled door. “Penguin's office is through the door, go on in, he's expecting you. He's alone.”  
  
Jim knocked on the door. “Cobblepot? It's Gordon, I'm coming in.”  
  
He hesitated, he hadn't seen Oswald in months and the last time had not gone well. In the meantime he had heard disturbing rumors about the mobster, rumors he had not believed. But seeing all this now, he worried Penguin might not be the same Oswald he had almost considered a friend. He turned the knob, it was open.  
  
“What have I told you Edward, stop slobbering all over my face when I'm trying to work,” he heard Oswald giggle. “Who's a good boy, are you a good boy?” He thought Oswald was making kissing noises.  
  
By Gotham! Not only was Nygma here, he was _here._ And kissing Oswald by the sound of it. Jim was hardly surprised, he had known the two men had a history of being friends, maybe more, though nothing had ever been confirmed, it had been pretty obvious they were more than just friends. But he had thought that had all ended when Lee stepped into the picture.  
  
“Thought you said he was alone.”  
  
“Oh that's just Edward,” Zsasz shrugged. “He hardly counts. Unless he's hungry, then it's all bark, bark, bark. Boss spoils him rotten.”  
  
Jim felt like he was missing something.  
  
“Is that you we hear, Victor?” Oswald asked through the door.  
  
“Brought Jim Gordon like you asked, boss.”  
  
“Well, show him in,” Oswald demanded.  
  
Zsasz pushed the door open, and Jim was greeted by the sight of Oswald behind a large desk holding a small bulldog puppy up to his face. “Here Victor, take Edward out on his walk while Jim and I speak,” he handed the squirming dog to Zsasz.  
  
“You named your dog… Edward?” Jim felt even more lost than he was before.  
  
Zsasz was laughing as he left with the dog, he shut the door behind him leaving him alone with Oswald for the first time since this whole thing started.  
  
“I let Martine name the puppy and he chose the name,” Oswald at least looked embarrassed. “I think the boy somewhat idolizes the Riddler, Ed did save the boy from Sofia’s men after all.” He stood and walked towards Jim, his limp was worse now and he was wearing some kind of heavy brace on his leg. “It is good to see you again, old friend.”  
  
“You look…,” Jim paused at a loss for words. He had missed Oswald far more than he would've ever admitted. “Good. You look good.” Oswald looked better than anyone had any right to under Gotham's fall from grace.  
  
“And you look like shit,” he hugged Jim. “Smell like it too.” Jim had come a long way from the clean boy scout he had been.  
  
“Martine is here?”  
  
“The boy is… safe,” Oswald answered carefully. “I'm sorry, Jim. But I will say no more.” He pulled away.  
  
James wanted to tell Oswald that he would not attempt to take the orphan from him, not again, that it had been a mistake to try the first time. The truth was the boy would be taken better care of here and the boy belonged with his father.  
  
“Lee would like to check him out… after what happened,” he suggested. “With your permission, of course.”  
  
“You and Dr. Thompkins… you're back together?”  
  
“No, Lee's opened a clinic in the Narrows and has declared it neutral territory. The Sirens have taken her under their protection, I hear she even has a personal relationship with their leader.”  
  
“Dr. Thompkins and Barbara Kean?” Oswald laughed. “That's the best joke I've heard since Jerome fell.”  
  
“So I hear,” he shrugged. “I wish them all the happiness I was never able to provide them.” He did too, there was some regret there as well, but the past was past.  
  
“I wondered at first what Lee ever saw in Ed,” Oswald said. “Then I realized she wanted to heal him. Only she didn't realize, the only way to heal him was to allow him to be the other man he was always meant to be.”  
  
“Is Nygma still here?” Jim held his breath.  
  
“No. Ed left soon after… well, after Lee left.”  
  
“Do you know where he went?” Nygma was bad news and it made Jim nervous not knowing where he was, what he was planning.  
  
“No, nor do I particularly care, if you came to ask me about Nygma you can see yourself out,” he told him. “Why have you come, James?”  
  
“I have come to ask you for a favor,” Jim answered.  
  
“I would say, you are out of favors,” he said. “And you have nothing to gamble with.”  
  
“We need propane for the heaters, Oswald,” Jim continued. “With the blizzard season setting in, we’re going to freeze.” And Penguin currently held all of Gotham's supply.  
  
“What of those fancy devices of that Wayne boy?”  
  
“They are sufficient light sources, however Bruce and Fox worry that they may become unstable if we put too much of a strain on them.”  
  
Jeremiah had used the same technology to blow Gotham off the grid after all.  
  
“I might be willing to offer a trade,” Oswald proposed. “However in exchange you will bring me three of your energy generators.”  
  
“I can't do that,” he admitted. “They're not mine to trade.”  
  
“Then go back and tell Wayne and Fox that those are my limits.”  
  
“Haven does not make deals with gangsters, Penguin,” he said.  
  
“But you will demand favors of them, won't you James? It's nice to see some things never change in Gotham.” Oswald turned his back to him. “I tire of your audience, see yourself out. And don't come back, or I will give the order to shoot you on sight.”  
  
“Oswald, please, I've come to beg you as a friend,” Jim hated doing it this way, but he would do what he needed to for his people.  
  
“When have you ever been my friend, Gordon?” Oswald turned back around and poked him in the chest. “They don't even know you're here, do they? Can't let your real friends know of your relationship with the Penguin, can you?”  
  
When Oswald put it that way it sounded dirty.  
  
“Oswald… we're freezing,” Jim begged. “I'll do anything.”  
  
“Anything?” Oswald smirked.  
  
“Anything,” Jim agreed, his people trusted him to save them.  
  
“Get on your knees, and beg properly, Jim.”  
  
James bit back his pride and got down on his knees in front of Oswald. “I beg your help, Oswald.”  
  
Oswald held his hand out to him. “Kiss my hand, Jim.”  
  
He leaned forward and placed his mouth on the back of the Penguin's hand.  
  
“You may get up, James,” Oswald pulled him to his feet. He took off Jim’s gloves and rubbed warmth into his frozen hands. “You will remain the night and we will discuss the terms in the morning, if that is agreeable to you.”  
  
“I will do as you ask.” James would do whatever he needed to save his people.  
  
“Good! But first we must get you cleaned up.”  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 will feature a lot more Gobblepot and be a lot more shippy than Part 1. 
> 
> Thank you for reading so far :)
> 
> I really feel like I am incapable of writing fluff for this ship (Why can't I write a nice fluff Christmas fic for these two??)


End file.
